


H is for Home

by zeilfanaat



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alphabet Soup Challenge, Episode: s04e15 Chain Reaction, Family, Friendship, Friendship Alphabet Soup Challenge November 2014, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-04 00:49:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2903228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeilfanaat/pseuds/zeilfanaat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>General Hammond comes home to a welcome scene.</p>
<p>Written for the Friendship Alphabet Soup of November 2014. Friendship: George Hammond and Jack O'Neill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	H is for Home

It was with a weary sigh that Major General Hammond started his walk towards his own front door. He loved his job as the head of the SGC, even if it had cost him the few hairs he’d had left at the start of his assignment here. He just wasn’t particularly fond of having to go back to the mountain when he had his two granddaughters over. Why couldn’t this crisis have cropped up tomorrow or yesterday?  
No, scrap yesterday. Yesterday had had its own crises. Come to think of it, tomorrow probably would have plenty as well. Still, was one crisis-free day too much to ask?

Perhaps he should have anticipated it. With Jack on medical leave, Colonel Reynolds in the infirmary, leaving Dixon in charge, it was almost like taunting fate to expect an uninterrupted day with the girls.

And of course, this just happened to be one of those days that neither his daughter nor his son-in-law would be able to come back straight away. He’d hesitated for a moment, considering the Colonel’s injuries, but still went ahead and called him. Tessa and Kayla trusted Jack, and more importantly, Hammond trusted him.

His musings had brought him to his front door, and he paused there for a moment. He wondered if Jack would have started dinner preparations yet. The few times the Colonel had ended up looking after the girls around dinnertime, he actually had. In this case, George thought the twisted knee and bruised ribs would have kept the man from making the effort. To be perfectly honest, George didn’t feel much like cooking either today. They would probably order take-out.

Already running through a mental list of what kind of take-out the girls would like, he opened the door. Immediately a waft of a very recognisable dish came to greet him, along with the sounds of giggles and the gruff voice of his Second in Command.

He walked to the kitchen, where he paused in the doorway to take in the sight. Kayla was on her knees on a chair, in front of the kitchen counter, apparently rolling out some dough with a dough pin. Tessa was at the stove, carefully stirring what smelled like a tomato sauce. Jack had seated himself at the kitchen table, close to the stove to take action if necessary. A couple of ingredients were spread out on the table, most already cut, a few awaiting their turn to meet the knife.

Kayla giggled at the flour she had accidentally gotten on her nose. She turned to look at Jack with a mischievous expression, clearly planning to share some of the powder. That was when she noticed her grandfather.

“Grandpa!” She let herself slide off the chair and ran around to greet her grandfather. George gave himself a mental pat on the back for thinking of changing into his civvies while he was still at the SGC. The moment the little girl’s arms wrapped around him, flour- covered hands were just a background thought. “Hey Kayla.” He let go and went over to his older granddaughter to give her a hug too. “Hey Tessa. That smells great.”

She beamed up at him. “We’re making pizza!”

“I figured that’s what it was.”

“We’ve done it all ourselves!” Kayla added proudly, “Look, there’s already one in the oven.”

George let himself be dragged over to have a look. He greeted Jack on his way, who nodded back with an amused “General”, as he continued to slice the mushrooms.

“That looks delicious, girls.” Hammond grabbed another chair and joined Jack at the table.

“We made that one first, but then I …we used too much tomato sauce so we’re making more,” Kayla told him, sneaking a quick look at Jack, who tried very hard not to grin.

Tessa looked up. “I think it’s ready, Uncle Jack.”

“Alright, have a taste,” Jack said.

Tessa grabbed a spoon and carefully tried a bit of the hot sauce. “It’s good,” she declared after a moment of deliberation. Jack nodded. “Ok. You can turn off the stove then.” He watched as she correctly turned it off. “Good job. Kayla, how’s the crust?”

“It’s ready!!” The youngest of the two girls practically bounced back over to the kitchen counter where she had rolled out the dough. It wasn’t exactly round…or close to it, really… but it was just about equally flat everywhere.

“Well done, go ahead and put it on the baking tray,” Jack instructed. They’d already put some flour on there. From his position, Jack could easily reach over to the stove to grab the thankfully small pot of sauce, without straining his ribs too much. “Can I do it?” Kayla asked, bouncing on her feet. “I’ll be careful this time!”

George had a sinking feeling that he’d be trying to get tomato stains out of clothing. Come to think of it, hadn’t she been wearing a different shirt this morning?

“It’s Tessa’s turn,” Jack replied. Seeing his commander’s look, he added, “The stains are out, they just need to be washed still. I put them in a plastic bag for now. Ok, careful, Tessa, it’s still a bit hot,” Jack said to the oldest of the two. Tessa smiled, then bit her lip as she very carefully spooned the tomato sauce onto the pizza base, and spread it out. “Ok,” Jack said, putting the mostly empty pot back onto the stove for now. “Go ahead.”

Immediately the two girls started ‘decorating’ the pizza with different ingredients, giggling at some of the more unusual combinations. The oven beeped. “First one is ready,” Jack announced. He started heaving himself out of his chair, when George stopped him. “I’ll get it.”

Jack nodded, silently relieved as his knee was throbbing more and more. Instead, he started stacking a few empty bowls that had contained ingredients for the pizza. That way they’d have some room to actually eat.

Soon enough, everyone was munching on a piece of homemade pizza. The second one was in the oven. Tessa and Kayla were telling their grandfather about their afternoon. Jack ignored George’s admonishing look when he heard they’d all walked to the store a couple of blocks away to get a few missing ingredients. He was fine! The doc had said he was allowed to take short walks, as long as he was taking it easy.

Later, when the dishes were all put away, Jack had tried leaving. Not that he really wanted to, but with Hammond back home, his presence was no longer necessary. The girls objected, saying they needed his help with a board game otherwise Grandpa would win _again_. George told him he was welcome to stay. So, he stayed.

When Tessa doubled over in laughter at something Jack had stage-whispered, and Kayla leaned against her grandfather, tired from the day’s activities, George sighed contentedly.

He loved moments like these. They were kind of family moments. Sure, Jack was not really family; technically he was just his subordinate, his Second in Command. Yet they had become good friends, and George couldn’t deny that he had some paternal feelings towards this man who had been through so much in his life. And of course the girls loved him as an uncle.

Jack caught his gaze, and something of what he had been feeling must have been reflected there, because Jack smiled knowingly.

Yes, George decided, this was a family moment. This was home.

**The End**


End file.
